Live and Let Die – The last blacksploitation movie?

I’ve just rewatched the 1973 classic Bond movie, Live and Let Die. What a treat, in the same way that Rising Damp or Reggie Perrin is. It’s worth remembering that it was made three years after Shaft (1971) and Shaft 2 (1973). As a result, the dialogue is fill of ‘Honkey’, ‘Whitey’ and the infamous Sherrif JD Pepper calling everyone ‘Boy’.

Every black actor is a villian (except Quarell, the CIA buddie), the badies boats and cars are black, the goodies are all white. The clothes are extraordinary. Bond and Leiter are dressed in Saville Row/Brooks Brothers including a gun holster for Bond so St James Street it still makes me smile with the inset blue silk.

The villains are dressed like psycotic, gay carnival characters with feathers and six inch wide kipper ties. Mr Big’s cars are like hideous boats loaded with chrome and unspeakable leather seats.

And then you have the music which is really bad. Wings did the theme tune which is almost all you need to know.